New poetry by the award-winning poet Tracy K. Smith, whose 8220;lyric brilliance and political impulses never falter8221; (Publishers Weekly, starred review) You lie there kicking like a baby, waiting for God himself To lift you past the rungs of your crib. What Would your life say if it could talk?160; 160;160;160;160;160;160;160;160;160;160;160;160;160;160;160;160;160;160;160;160;160;160;160;160;160;160;160;160;160;160;160;160;160;160;160;160;160;160;160;160;160;160;160;160;160;160;160;160;160;160;160;160;160;160;160;160;160;160;160;8212;from 8220;No Fly Zone8221; With allusions to David Bowie and interplanetary travel, Life on Mars imagines a soundtrack for the universe to accompany the discoveries, failures, and oddities of human existence. In these brilliant new poems, Tracy K. Smith envisions a sci-fi future sucked clean of any real dangers, contemplates the dark matter that keeps people both close and distant, and revisits the kitschy concepts like 8220;love8221; and 8220;illness8221; now relegated to the Museum of Obsolescence. These poems reveal the realities of life lived here, on the ground, where a daughter is imprisoned in the basement by her own father, where celebrities and pop stars walk among us, and where the poet herself loses her father, one of the engineers who worked on the Hubble Space Telescope. With this remarkable third collection, Smith establishes herself among the best poets of her generation.